Kids with Muscular Dystrophy in the Kansas City area are stunned by a decision to no longer send local kids to a popular summer camp they have attended for years.

Families, camp counselors, and friends are now organizing a major effort to get the Muscular Dystrophy Association to reverse that decision.

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The decision impacts up to 100 kids and roughly 100 counselors and staff in the Kansas City and Wichita areas attending camp at Tall Oaks Conference Center in Linwood, Kan., every summer.

Tall Oaks Conference Center remains open, but MDA has chosen to cancel its week at the camp and send campers elsewhere.

MDA, the organization made popular by performer Jerry Lewis, has held telethons to raise money for camps and research for decades.

Yet, multiple families and counselors who reached out to KMBC question why the money they have raised will now send their campers to a camp for kids with disabilities 4 hours away from the location where they have bonded for decades.

“I heard it through an email,” MDA camper Lindsay Cochran said through tears. “I heard it through an email that I wouldn’t be able to go to my camp anymore.”

Cochran has raised tens of thousands of dollars as an MDA ambassador, spending eight years at Camp Tall Oaks in Linwood.

“Sending us to another camp is just trying to like break up a family,” she said. “I’m really sad that I’ve raised so much money and it won’t be happening anymore.”

Her counselor of six years, Lauren Wegley, is equally disappointed.

“They can choose to go to this other camp, but it’s not the same thing that they’ve known their whole lives,” she said. “I could never look them in the eye and say, ‘That’s too bad, it’s over.’ ”

It is exactly why she and several other camp counselors and families are supporting a GoFundMe page to raise money to keep the camp alive and close to home. They say an alternative camp would not provide the same accommodations to keep campers and counselors together.

In a statement to KMBC, MDA says it is making “enhancements” to its camp program, “offering the most enriching experiences for each camper with updated programming and a focus on best-in-class facilities.”

“We are currently engaging with families and volunteers in the area, to ensure that we are addressing their concerns,” Monica Meriwether, MDA Associate Director of Family Support and Clinical Care, said. “As always, MDA summer camps will continue to be provided at no cost to families.”

Families say campers at MDA camps nationwide are also impacted by various closures.

KMBC is committed to follow this story and bring you updates as they develop.